<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>the loss of a different self by doublejoint</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26935573">the loss of a different self</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint'>doublejoint</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>peachtober 2020 [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:21:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,013</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26935573</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Shuuzou dreams of a different self on the other side of the mirror.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>peachtober 2020 [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953295</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the loss of a different self</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>#peachtober day 9: Rainbow</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Shuuzou dreams of a different self on the other side of the mirror who moves faster than he can, whose motions Shuuzou tries to follow (as if he’s the reflection maybe). He can’t; it’s as if he’s trapped underwater and pushing against that weight, and the other him is free in the air, no resistance. He turns around, still too slowly, and there’s another mirror on the other side, and another to the right, multiple versions of him, like light bent through a prism, all moving faster, until he opens his eyes and they fade away like an image left too long and too bright on a screen, the negative burned into his vision. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s never been big on dream analysis, but this dream sticks with him like a loose piece of toilet paper on the bottom of his shoe. It won’t leave him alone, and when he’s spacing out in class, the professor droning on about mathematical concepts that Shuuzou had already learned back in high school, coffee mugs and chef’s hats doodled in the margins of his notes, he thinks about what he’d seen and hadn’t seen from those other versions of himself. What they could represent, well, that’s obvious. His future, split into pieces like string cheese, peeled away from the center until what’s left is whatever makes him himself now. If he were still back in Japan, he would have had to make that choice already, but here he can push it off, procrastinate, wait for the path to open up and call him, but he’s hearing nothing. Being an adequate math student doesn’t translate into being a mathematician, or making a living out of it; staying up late cramming for the econ tests just a little more than the other students in his entry level classes does not make him a future CEO. He doesn’t want to be a CEO, anyway; if he gets some kind of corporate job he’d rather have someone to answer to, to mandate impossible standards--it’s not like he’s great at following orders, but he’ll do it to make money and support his family and pay off student loans and get a mortgage. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His ten-year-old self would spit in his face and call him a sellout, and he’d be right. But sometimes you have to sell out for the right price, or maybe that’s just a lie that adults tell themselves to feel better about their actions. There might be a world out there, somewhere far away, where Shuuzou had stayed on the path he’d been on then, dyed hair and scraped knees and cigarette burns and fights, stolen food and stolen motorcycles, infinite layers of worry on his parents’ shoulders, and him not caring about it, or only caring too deep inside of himself to admit the truth. And if, in that universe, his father had still gotten sick, would his parents have just left him behind? They wouldn’t have, but maybe he wouldn’t have followed them, would have thrown away the plane ticket because he’d still pretended he didn’t care. Or he wouldn’t have been able to lie to himself that much, but he would have been too ashamed to face them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As it is, it’s hard sometimes, still, and for a second tears burn in the back of his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are the circumstances in which L’Hopital’s rule applies? Can someone tell me one?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shuuzou puts up his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The professor points at him. “Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Infinity over infinity.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s one. Another?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shuuzou’s gaze unfocuses again. He adds a handle to the drawing of the mug, and then scribbles a cursory “L’Hopital” under the date on the page. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe that’s what the dream is referring to, the alternate selves that don’t exist and can’t exist in this universe, not the ones who might. He does need to pick a major, but the deadline isn’t that soon, and he’s not that stressed about it. A field of study doesn’t matter too much when you’re not a scholar, and a job matters, but in broad strokes--having one, making enough money, staying engaged, keeping your supervisors happy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a version of him in a world where his father hadn’t gotten sick, and he’d stayed the captain of the Teikou team and they’d won the championship in a better way, and he’d gone on to play for one of the teams that had come to recruit him, Seihou or Shutoku or somewhere else. He’d take English in school and never need to say it and think it quite so rapidly as he does now. He might not know how to drive, take the train everywhere, have a career chosen, be on the track. Or maybe he’d be playing basketball all the time, still; rather than on the streets on weekends he’d be trying to go pro or playing on a college team against the guys he’d played with and against on the middle-school circuit. It’s a reach, but so many of them already have or will go pro--why not him?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He solves the problems on the board,  one after another, applying the rule over and over, quotient over quotient. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe there’s a version of him who’d stayed out on the streets and whose father’s health had stayed steady, who had somehow ended up in this calculus class in this college in this semester anyway. Shuuzou takes a look around; he can’t help himself, half-expecting to see a snarling blond mirror image somewhere in the room, but of course there isn’t one. That wouldn’t be in this universe, anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s no use dwelling on what could have been; he’s done that too often in the past, and today, regardless of the dream and what it means. The version of himself here, with all the splitting paths in front of him, is the only one he’s got to live with, and at least lately, he’s done the best he can. Shuuzou double-checks his math, and waits for the professor to solve the equations at the board. Maybe he’ll be right, but maybe he’ll be wrong.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>